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I was considering upgrading my old DS412+ to one of these for the transcoding boost, but without a second gig port and eSATA, it's out of the running already. I wonder if they will come out with a "415+" that adds back enterprise-ish / SMB features...Reply

I've got the ds214play and it's a great NAS – reliable, silent and full of features – but its transcoding ability isn't one of them. It only works with Synologys own apps and not within Plex, which at least for me makes it pretty useless. This will apparently not change either due to the way Evansport works.

Next time I get a NAS, I will probably throw more money to get a decent CPU that is powerful enough to do the transcoding. Specialized hardware doesn't seem to be the way to go.Reply

I have a DS213 for home office use, I really like it and the DSM software. I really want to upgrade to a 4 bay unit with more CPU. That's because I want to run 3 HDDs (RAID 5) + 1 SSD (Cache). I've never understood why but have been told in the past on Synology 4 disk NASs one needs to run 2 HDDs and 2 SSDs with the SSDs mirror the HDDs. That seems perhaps crazy, but at least unfortunate. Otherwise this looks perfect.

FWIW, the CPU upgrade desire isn't actually for transcoding, it's because BTSync and other apps I run on the DS will often max out the CPU for hours at a time. Reply

I dunno, reading the Synology forums, I don't get the impression that they care very much to fix the issues customers have with their products in a timely fashion, including the DS214Play. Nor is there any word on adding DTS audio support back in that was apparently left off the 214play for licensing reasons.

In fact, reading user experiences with their devices is what saved me spending hundreds of dollars by holding off buying a DS altogether until I see some promising updates from Synology.

They are pricey and while the OS is more featureful than the competition, each of their devices still seem to lack a bit in various key areas such that there is no one completely satisfactory solution. Either you get the right I/O connectivity but a weak CPU, or you get the Intel CPU but poor connectivity and no DTS support, and so on.

If they could release a model with a high quality CPU that can handle encryption and transcoding duties and also pair it with assorted connectivity options and not drop something else off the feature plate, that would be nice. Although, they'd probably then charge an extra hundred dollars for that, pushing it well beyond an appealing price bracket.

As someone who typically buys top quality products in a given industry, home NAS is the one area I have been unable to do so because I don't see anything that's actually the correct combination of features, price, and hardware, despite the fact that my needs are right in line with the average person's needs. So apparently manufacturers in the home NAS market have a ways to go yet.Reply

I should note regarding the DTS issue, that the thing that irks people so much about it is that the DS214play is the one model where it would be most relevant to ensure you have those sort of features available, given its focus on transcoding media. It's such a head-smackingly obvious thing, yet it epitomizes perfectly the frustration I find when browsing their various DS models and trying to find one that checks all the right boxes. There simply isn't one. It seems there's always some unreasonable compromise required with every model.Reply

Couldn't agree more, jay. The reasons you outline are why I have yet to buy a NAS. They may be the most robust home user option, imo, compared to other companies but as you say there is always one or two items missing from the checklist that keep me from hitting the buy button. And yes, I'm also afraid that if it had all the features in a 4-bay offering such as decent CPU(at least a Core i3), good transcoding, 2Gb of RAM and dual ethernet, I would probably have to pay $200 to $300 more.Reply

I do agree with you. For a NAS one would like to get as much functionality as possible. Realizing that price does come into play for all things. But, I too have held off buy a NAS due to seeing that one feature or more is always missing.

Just have to see what the remainder of the year brings. I guess if one waits 'forever', one would never buy waiting for the 'perfect' thing. For me, if I cannot use a USB connection to at least copy files to a USB drive for backup purposes, that stops me from buying a 415play. -->I see there are USB ports; but due to my ignorance of what is possible, the lack of the 'USBCopy' feature has me stopped -- for now. THE DSM OS is what is keeping me interested in Synology.Reply

Given the comments here it might make more sense to buy a 'dumb' NAS and use the savings to put together a dedicated media streaming box running PLEX or XBMC fed from the NAS. It might be more expensive and slightly more complicated setup but it would also be much more flexible.Reply